It’s been almost five years since we received the eighth generation of gaming consoles, and now Sony has officially confirmed that it's developing the next PlayStation, though it hasn’t come up with a name for the hardware.
The fifth iteration won’t be called a PS5, and although they confirmed the development, the entertainment giant doesn’t appear to be in a rush to push this guy out. “At this point, what I can say is it's necessary to have a next-generation hardware," Sony’s Kenichiro Yoshida said, according to Forbes, without going into any further detail.
Some reports speculated the next PlayStation would be a huge departure from the current iteration, but Yoshida refused to comment on those specifics.
This news follows Microsoft’s announcement on Monday that it’s producing xCloud, a new service that streams Xbox and third party games to devices like phones and tablets without a console. The company also confirmed it’s working on future consoles. Meanwhile, Nintendo continues to succeed with its incredibly popular Switch console.
Recently, Sony allowed its Fortnite users to interact with players on other platforms including Nintendo Switch and Xbox One. Aside from that and its streaming on PlayStation Now, the PlayStation hasn’t undergone very many updates in recent years, and instead succeeds with an onslaught of exclusive games.
There’s no date attached to the new console, but comments made by John Kodera, the CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, fuel speculation that it won't be for another three years.
“We will use the next three years to prepare the next step, to crouch down so that we can jump higher in the future,” Kodera said in May.
If the speculation is true, that means we could be looking at the next gen of PlayStation in 2021.
